Trump says he wasn’t threatening Democrats he accused of ‘seditious behavior, punishable by death’

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that he’s “not threatening death” on a group of Democratic members of Congress whom he accused of “seditious behavior,” which he said was “punishable by death.”

“In the old days, if you said a thing like that, that was punishable by death,” the president said in an interview Friday on conservative Brian Kilmeade’s radio show when asked to clarify what he meant.

The president denied that he threatened the members of Congress. “I think they’re in serious trouble. I would say they’re in serious trouble. I’m not threatening death, but I think they’re in serious trouble. In the old days, it was death. That was seditious behavior.”

Trump said that the lawmakers who appeared in the video “broke the law,” and added, “I can say if I ever said that and there were a Democrat as president, all hell would have broken loose. And it has broken loose.”

The president lodged the accusation and warning Thursday after Democratic lawmakers, many of whom are veterans, had released a video urging members of the military and intelligence community not to follow illegal orders.

Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who spearheaded the video, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.